Options down the road: No vibrato...solid tailpiece; two pickups (as per Garcia), choice of various humbuckers, buffer preamp, buffered OBEL system, bird's eye pickguard plates as per Garcia.

So the first one is going to be closer to what I played in '67 and '68. Future instrument can be more like Jerry's. All will have some improvements...the carbon fiber in the necks, better hardware, full shielding, EVO gold fret wire, better finishes.

I'm doing the first one for myself, and I'm going with the over-the-top Duncan Zephyr pickups...silver magnet wire. I'll get working on it in a couple of weeks, and I'll post pictures as I get going on it. I'll probably set up to make half a dozen as a first run. Some with 3 pickups, some with two and the bird's eye plates that were on it when Jerry had it.

That's really cool that you're making a reissue of the peanut, great idea for your 50th year.

The wiring configuration you're talking about for the first one, which is to be yours sounds very interesting. THe original peanut just has standard wiring or was it wired like that/

I'm wondering what your theory/reasoning for wiring it like that, having the middle pup seperate from the bridge and neck pups is a very interesting concept IMO.In a setup like that would you be running it into multiple amps? Would you be using a seperate amp for the middle pup or wouuld it all run into the same amp?Having one amp for the middle pup and another for the bridge and neck sounds like it could be really ccool.

Have you wired and//or played a guitar that's wired like that before? What kind of addvantages/disadvantages do you see to having a setup like that?To me it looks like it could be a little difficult to get set up right and dialed in but once everything's set up right it could be totally sick..Any thoughts/theories on that setup would be greatly appreciated.

How exactly did jerry have peanutt wired, if you can remember, was his basically like a LP/SG setup or was it fullly custom?Was there any sort of blaster/buffer in the original peanut?

Thanks Rick, it's totally unbelievable that we actually get to interact with one of the guys who helped make the Grateful Dead's sound possible.